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72 thoughts on “Question of the Day – No. 404”

THE WORK by Byron Katie. Making me realise I believe bullshit and my thoughts are just to be observed and not latched on to like the Gospel truth.
Kind of liberating knowing that just ‘cause I’ve generated a thought, doesn’t mean it HAS to mean something 😊

I try to keep in the habit of 10 minutes a day. This is an easily sustainable goal for me. Sometimes it’s longer but when I set my goal at a level that is easy to meet I get it done! If I try to set a goal that is going to be a struggle I just avoid it.

I really like this because there have been many times I’ve had to just distract my mind to get away from something stressful. Music and audio books really helped just keep me somewhere else until the storm passed. Coming back to an issue later, can be helpful for coming back to it with greater clarity.

I wouldn’t say it’s divine. It is quite rational and logical, to be able to see something from the outside you are able to get a larger scope (or perspective) of things. A bit of distance helps to clear mental fog.
Although epiphanies, sudden realisations and understandings – that, to me, certainly feels divine.

Daily. I used to be one of those people who thought that meditation didn’t work until I started doing it. It’s been a pretty helpful thing – not only while doing the ‘meditation’, but I noticed that throughout the day I am much more relaxed and my mind focuses on stuff a lot easier.
🙂

No, it’s hard I agree. This is because I realised I’m somewhere giving too much importance to judgements of people around me. While analysing my thoughts I was viewing them as what other people would think about this decision rather than thinking about what consequences it would bring to me.
That’s when the introspection and retrospection came into scene. Now I only worry about what changes my thoughts will bring to me, nothing else.
That’s somewhere makes it a little easy. Helps me to clarify my thoughts a little better because now I’m fighting against me not the other world.

I’d say it happens intuitively — a feeling or spark that pulls me in one direction or another. A majority of the time, however, when my headspace gets overwhelmingly clouded/crowded, I just go straight to the journal page. After engaging in that practice for so many years, I know with complete trust + faith that it’ll always help somehow.

Both of these and more, when I listen to music it helps me to collect my own thoughts and also to relate occasionally to particular songs as well for reflection. When I make my own music I’d saw that’s when it’s more about release.

It gives me an opportunity to carefully observe my thought. Memory, feeling, body responses, etc. WHAT ARE THE INPUTS AND WHAT ARE THE OUTPUTS? Lets me look at my beliefs, desires, identities, conditions, biases, etc. Basically a ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS! Being able to understand the BIGGER PICTURE is very important for me. It may not help solve anything in the short term but subtly nudges my sensitivity, seeps into my subconscious and influences my consciousness as I know it.

I am quite confident I know the answer to this one: in my case, running through arguments in my head to arrive at what I think is a concrete conclusion often involves hidden biases and automatic assumptions that become revealed when the argument is externalized.
Here is a very real example: when I prepare a talk for a conference on my field of scientific research, I spend days going over the talk in my head. And I am certain, at this stage, that the talk makes sense. But when I do a dry run through the talk, it becomes glaringly obvious that what I thought made sense, or was clear, was in fact not.
The same thing happens when I am certain of some outcome in some interaction that is important to me (say a tough discussion with the wife or the boss). I am certain of my position…in my head. But when it is vocalized, that position becomes much less certain.
I hope these ideas are clear…